Crown of Blood by D. G. Swank & Alessandra Thomas

Author:D. G. Swank & Alessandra Thomas [Swank, D. G. & Thomas, Alessandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781940562209
Publisher: Sixpence Publishing
Published: 2019-08-05T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Since I didn’t want to go to my room, I headed back to the library. Using my magic, I locked the door. It was time for me to explore the magic of the orb. I didn’t want to use the book to destroy the Dark Set, so I had to rely on the materials I already had.

I concentrated on the natural elements around me—the two inches of water in the glass on one of the trays, the dirt Zane had carried in on his shoes, and the air around me. I connected to it easily; the orb had a soft, consistent thrum of power. There was a malevolent edge to it, a reminder of what it was and where it had come from. I’d expected one person’s power to be caught in the orb: Phoebe’s, but that wasn’t so. Several different specialties were represented in the stew of power contained in the orb. Ancestral magic—Phoebe’s. Glamour. Telekinesis. Telepathy. And several more. Some of the power, I sensed, had been in the orb for hundreds of years. The last person who’d used it hadn’t cleared it out. Maybe they hadn’t known how. My power strained for the orb, wanting what it held inside, but I didn’t dare attempt to release the power. If I absorbed it, I wasn’t at all sure I could survive the flood.

How could I practice with the orb without using it on living, breathing people? Donall had said I could—he’d encouraged it, but I didn’t feel comfortable using it on people of his choice. It didn’t seem right. After all, it wasn’t like Donall was going to let me experiment on his horrible friends. The people he would choose would be the most expendable. The witches.

I could only hope my training with Zane would buy me more time. Maybe I’d figure out another way.

Sighing, I let the orb sink back into my palm and unlocked the door. My eyes fell on the stack of books Zane had chosen for me, and I let my magic pick which one I should read. It settled on a book about the history of Medieval England. The pages fluttered open, stopping on a story about a woman whose neighbors discovered she was a witch. She was said to control the ocean waves, the weather, the crops. It seemed she pulled her magic from the very air, and she could do anything she pleased with it. Make fire. Heal illnesses.

It came as little surprise that the villagers had thanked her by driving her out of the village. They’d attempted to burn her at the stake, but the flames had turned into a patch of red and orange wildflowers.

When I was done with that passage, my magic let me know it was time to move on. I read section after section about expression witches and the occasional mage, learning about the things that were possible with my magic.

Zane was right, it appeared, we could do nearly anything.

Enough time passed that I got hungry again, and I ate the second lunch.

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